麻豆传媒

UK Treasury website hosts climate denial paper

DOES it matter where you park old documents on your website that you are no longer interested in? Yes, it does matter, especially if the website bears the name of a major government department and the documents are accessible to the public.

Back in April 2008, columnist in the UK鈥檚 weekly Spectator: 鈥淗M Treasury has posted on its website a paper about solar cycles, which says: 鈥楤ased on solar maxima of approximately 50 for solar cycles 24 and 25, a global temperature decline of 1.5 掳C is predicted to 2020, equating to the experience of the Dalton Minimum鈥�.鈥�

Many readers with an active interest in the future of the planet will recognise this argument. A moment with a famous web search engine (FWSE) reveals that it is , who gives his academic affiliation as 鈥淪umma Development Limited, Perth, WA, Australia鈥�. We can find no trace of this organisation online, apart from an entry in the Australian trade marks registry and various discussions of Archibald鈥檚 claim that global temperatures will decline until 2020.

So why did Her Majesty鈥檚 Treasury, the UK鈥檚 finance ministry, post this stuff on its website? They didn鈥檛 think they had, it seems. The person who responded to a query from Feedback reader Martin Brown appeared not to understand what was going on: 鈥淥nce [documents] have been hosted on our site, we have no control over the way in which other sites link to them,鈥� they wrote, and suggested that Martin should instead have followed the to the government鈥檚 Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change.

So Feedback had an unofficial look. Another moment鈥檚 FWSEing revealed the existence of a folder on the Treasury web server computer containing some 10,000 random documents that appear 鈥� and we鈥檙e guessing here 鈥� to have been put there in case officials might like to look at them, if only for amusement. To give an example, one we looked at with amusement was , marked 鈥渟ecret鈥�, that warned British embassies of the UK鈥檚 impending emergency approach to the International Monetary Fund in 1976 鈥� which led to severe cuts in government-funded science and social spending.

Phillips isn鈥檛 the only person to have been given the impression that these documents鈥� visible existence on the Treasury鈥檚 website implies approval of their content. Archibald 鈥渢hat paper hosted on the HM Treasury website鈥�.

Feedback offers the Treasury a simple solution to this problem. Based on the contents of the offending folder, which is named 鈥� but which can only be accessed via the FWSE (use the URL ) 鈥� they should rename it 鈥溾��.

Alternatively, for a reasonable fee, we will show them how to make it genuinely private, as we assume it is supposed to be.

How to bore teenagers

ALWAYS pleased to encourage children to take an interest in science, Owen Healy was happy to be given a script to read from when he was giving tours of Rutgers University School of Engineering at New Brunswick, New Jersey, to schoolchildren aged 11 to 14.

He was less happy when he started reading it: 鈥淭he Fibre Optics and Materials Research Program was established in 1985 under the auspices of the New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology to conduct collaborative research and provide technical support to industrial, government and national laboratories on newly emerging fibre optic materials, waveguides, devices and their applications鈥︹��

We can only imagine how excited the kids were by this vibrant text.

鈥淎 sign on a building at Durham University in the UK says 鈥淣o smoking outside these doors鈥�. Martin Dehnel observes that since smoking is banned inside, too, the university is claiming jurisdiction over the universe鈥�

Wallace & Gromit competition

FINALLY, don鈥檛 forget to send in your entries to our competition for all the family in celebration of the Wallace and Gromit exhibition at the Science Museum in London.

Feedback has teamed up with Carlton Books to offer you the chance to win a copy of by Penny Worms, signed by the characters鈥� creator, Nick Park. This fun hardback is packed with information about Wallace鈥檚 cracking contraptions and his madcap adventures with Gromit 鈥� from A Grand Day Out to A Matter of Loaf and Death.

All you have to do is write to us describing in no more than 100 words your own Wallace-and-Gromit-style invention. The best entry will receive a copy of the book signed by Park, with four runners-up each receiving an unsigned copy.

You may enter the competition by email (address below; please put 鈥淐ompetition鈥� in the subject field), fax, post or by going to www.newscientist.com/article/dn16888. The competition closes on 4 May 2009 and no entries will be accepted after that date. The results will be published in the 16 May issue of 麻豆传媒. The editor鈥檚 decision is final.